The Power of Habeas Corpus in America
From the King's Prerogative to the War on Terror

This book tells the story of habeas corpus from medieval England to modern America.

Anthony Gregory (Author)

9781107459663, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 26 June 2014

434 pages, 1 table
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm, 0.58 kg

'Gregory emphasizes paradoxes: how a writ designed to serve liberty began as a governmental power; how a writ initially designed for individuals accused of crime is primarily sought by those who have been convicted; and how a mechanism originally used by states to question federal detentions is now almost exclusively a federal preserve … Summing up: recommended. Upper-division undergraduate, graduate, research, and professional collections.' J. R. Vile, Choice

Despite its mystique as the greatest Anglo-American legal protection, habeas corpus' history features power plays, political hypocrisy, ad hoc jurisprudence, and failures in securing individual liberty. This book tells the story of the writ from medieval England to modern America, crediting the rocky history to the writ's very nature as a government power. The book weighs in on habeas' historical controversies - addressing its origins, the relationship between king and parliament, the US Constitution's Suspension Clause, the writ's role in the power struggle between the federal government and the states, and the proper scope of federal habeas for state prisoners and wartime detainees from the Civil War and World War II to the War on Terror. It stresses the importance of liberty and detention policy in making the writ more than a tool of power. The book presents a more nuanced and critical view of the writ's history, showing the dark side of this most revered judicial power.

Part I. A History of Power Struggles: 1. Common law, royal courts
2. Parliament and the king
3. Americanization
4. Constitutional counterrevolution
5. Fugitive slaves and liberty laws
6. Suspension and civil war
7. The writ reconstructed
8. Lynch mob justice
9. The writ in world war
10. Federal activism and retreat
Part II. Executive Detention in Post-9/11 America: 11. Ad hoc detentions
12. Bush's prerogative
13. The dance of the court and the executive
14. Obama's legal black hole
Part III. Custody and Liberty: 15. The great writ's paradox of power and liberty
16. A remedy in search of a principle
17. The modern detention state and the future of the writ.

Subject Areas: Jurisprudence & general issues [LA], Law [L]